A guide to the Cyclades

Santorini - Part 1

The island of Santorini is famous for its beauty and its
sophisticated hotels, but as Rachel Howard reveals, other islands
in the Cyclades have different attractions.Which of these Aegean
idylls is for you?

James Theodore Bent, the intrepid British scholar who toured the
Cyclades in the 1880s, pronounced Santorini 'a hideous island,
fascinating in its hideousness'. Today, the most famous of all
Greek islands is renowned for its ravishing beauty. However, if you
fly into Santorini, your first impressions might lean towards
Bent's school of thought. Unsightly buildings pockmark the
landscape. It is only when you catch sight of the caldera - the
flooded crater created by a volcanic eruption 3,500 years ago -
that you will appreciate why this is one of the world's top
honeymoon destinations.

'It's what the Americans call the million-dollar view,' says
Joseph Gaoutsis, co-manager of the Grace Santorini hotel. This
isn't just a turn of phrase. An acre of land on the caldera costs
more than a million euros. Ironically, land on this part of the
island was traditionally given to the black sheep of the family
because the sheer, windswept cliffs couldn't be cultivated with
vines or cherry tomatoes (the cornerstones of the local economy
before tourism). Now these rogues are millionaires. Thankfully,
building regulations along the caldera are tight, so there's
nothing to mar the mindblowing view.

Pictured: looking across the caldera to Oia from a rooftop
in Imerovigli